


The Necklace

by iolanthe_rosa



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-16
Updated: 2003-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:06:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iolanthe_rosa/pseuds/iolanthe_rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dom... frequently wears a neck chain that has a washer "engagement ring" from Ali Astin, and another ring which I believe is from one of the WETA people. The pendant has also recently been sporting some sort of red item which I've heard is some sort of Maori charm and a small padlock key, which I've heard is a luggage key." - MsAllegro, Bag End Inn </p>
            </blockquote>





	The Necklace

THE CHAIN  
  
The chain was a gift from Elijah. Well, not really a gift, as in Elijah thinking to himself, "What would be something really special that Dom would like? I'll bet he'd like... this!" But a gift, as in Elijah saying, "Do you want that?" and Dom saying, "Yeah." It was the first thing Elijah had ever given him.  
  
Elijah had half a dozen chains of different lengths and metals. He had had to wear each one for a day during pre-production so it could be decided which was best for displaying The One Ring. This chain was a long one; it made the ring hang almost to Elijah's stomach, which was awkward. It was obvious right away that it would not work, but they made him wear it all day to see if he developed a reaction to the metal. He did not.  
  
They let Elijah keep all the chains. He did not wear jewelry often, so the half-dozen or so necklaces lived in a cardboard box on top of the dresser in his trailer.  
  
Even very early in filming, the hobbit trailers had become a sort of communal living space, not just a row of unrelated aluminum structures. They went to Elijah's to listen to music, to Billy's for scotch and story-telling, to Dom's to drink lesser drinks and just fool around. Sean's was available for discussions of Tolkien and politics. No one went to his trailer very often, except Sir Ian sometimes.  
  
It was evening, early in the shoot, after the peeling off of costumes and makeup and feet. Dom wandered into Elijah's trailer. Elijah had changed into jeans and a t-shirt and was sitting, still barefoot, a little slumped, on the cushioned bench that ran along one side of his trailer. He looked young and pale and tired. He was listening to "Blackbird" by the Beatles.  
  
Dom suddenly felt a pang of guilt for being attracted to this homesick kid. Predatory, kind of. Then he felt a stronger pang, like his heart trying to claw its way out of his chest. He thought about the expression, "His heart went out to him." That was it: his heart was trying to crawl out of his chest and into Elijah's. Yeah, that would feel good.  
  
"Hey," he said.  
  
Elijah looked up. Then he did that thing he did: he stopped being a young, pale kid and transformed into a mature-beyond-his-years, beautiful-beyond-belief young adult male with a smile that raised the temperature in the trailer 10 degrees and turned Dom's cock to stone.  
  
"Hi! I'm listening to your White Album! Very cool. I really like this song - I have it on repeat. Can't believe I never listened much to the Beatles before. They're fantastic!"  
  
"Yeah," Dom said.  
  
Then Dom did that thing he did: he transformed instantly from an obnoxiously self-confident bilingual citizen of the world into a shy schoolboy. He started nervously fingering the items on Elijah's dresser: his pack of cloves, his green plastic lighter. He absently lifted the lid of the small cardboard box that held the chains, and lifted the long one out.  
  
Elijah watched him, his eyes becoming glassy as he watched the chain dangle from the end of Dom's long fingers.  
  
"Do you want that?" Elijah asked.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
********  
THE WASHER  
  
Ali was out the door and down the path as soon as Dom and Elijah emerged from the car. Dom scooped her up in his arms and immediately became Uncle Dom. "Who let this princess out of the castle? There's a dragon out here who might get you, you know! Let's go inside and look for your magic wand, shall we?" Ali squealed as Dom hoisted her up on his shoulders and trotted her back inside. A quick exchange of instructions with Elijah, and Sean and Christine drove off.  
  
In the kitchen, the plumber was hard at work dismantling the sink. Faucet parts and tools were spread across a clean cloth on the floor. Sean and Christine had decided to take advantage of the kitchen being out of order to have a nice lunch at a restaurant. Dom and Elijah had agreed to look after Ali. They were enjoying a quiet Sunday off from the ever-intensifying filming schedule.  
  
Dom had young nieces and nephews and knew how to have fun with a toddler, so he was Ali's sitter of choice. If he happened to bring one or two of the other uncles along, so much the better, from her point of view. She liked Uncle Billy a lot, with his funny way of talking and gentle manner.  
  
She liked Uncle Lijah, too, but she felt shy around him. She was never quite sure if he was real or not. At age three, she had enough trouble telling reality from fantasy without having the problem thrust upon her in the form of a pair of impossibly enormous blue eyes, and hugs that smelled like cigarettes.  
  
"Let's play Wizard of Oz! I'm Dorothy, Uncle Dom's the Good Witch and Uncle Lijah's the Cowardly Lion!"  
  
Ali's pretend games had a pattern: three characters, one scene. Play the scene three times, each person taking turns playing a part.  
  
"Let's play Little House on the Prairie I'm Laura, Uncle Dom's Mary, and Uncle Lijah's Ma!"  
  
Dom and Elijah had to try very hard not to writhe on the floor in hysterics.  
  
"Let's play Wedding! I'm the bride and Uncle Dom's the groom and Uncle Lijah's the best man!"  
  
Dom looked around for something to use as a ring. They had already pressed one of the plumber's wrenches into service as a magic wand. The plumber grunted in a good-natured way as Dom selected a washer from the parts laid out on the floor in the kitchen and returned to the living room.  
  
"Will you marry me, Ali Astin?" Dom asked with as serious an expression as he could muster, handing her the washer.  
  
"Yes, Uncle Dom," she giggled, taking the washer from him. Dom kissed her chastely on the cheek. "My bride," he sighed dramatically.  
  
Then Ali turned to Elijah. "Will you marry me, Uncle Lijah?" She handed him the washer.  
  
"I'd be honored," he answered gravely, taking the washer, and giving her a kiss on the other cheek. "You *are* the world's prettiest bride, you know." Ali nodded her head. "Yes, I know. Now it's your turn, Uncle Lijah! Ask Uncle Dom to marry you!"  
  
Elijah blushed the way only a really really fair-skinned person can. Dom was sitting on the floor across from him, and Dom was sure he could see the heat waves rising from Elijah's face.  
  
"Go on, Uncle Lijah!" Ali prodded.  
  
Dom smiled encouragingly. "Yeah, Elijah, go on." It was easy for Dom, because he already knew that he would be spending the rest of his life with Elijah. But they had only just gotten together as a couple after months of bobbing and weaving, and it was all still a little overwhelming and confusing for Elijah. Was this moment fraught with meaning or not? He wasn't sure.  
  
Elijah handed Dom the washer. "Will you marry me, Dom?" he asked, somewhat hesitantly.  
  
Dom paused for a moment, as if seriously considering the question. Then he answered.  
  
"I'd love to, Lij, but I'm already married to Ali- and so are you!"  
  
Ali laughed so hard, she gave herself the hiccups.  
  
Dom pocketed the washer and put it on his chain that night.  
  
********  
THE KEY  
  
Filming was over. It was over. Over. O-ver. Oh-vur. Ohhh-vurrr. If Elijah repeated the word often enough, it stopped meaning anything and just became a couple of silly sounds: "oh" and "vur." But even stripped of meaning, the oh-vur sounds made him feel like crying.  
  
Of course, he had put off packing until the last minute. In 48 hours, he would be celebrating Christmas with his family in Los Angeles. Another word that was losing its meaning was "family." How could that word mean anything if it did not include Dom?  
  
Most of his stuff would be staying behind. The production company would get rid of the pots and pans and bed linens and other household gear they had provided him with when he moved into his Wellington house. All he really needed to pack were his clothes and pictures and CDs and personal items.  
  
He had a lot of CDs. Several packing boxes were open in front of him, most of them full of jewel cases. Elijah loved the sound of that phrase, "jewel cases." That's what they were for him, little plastic boxes full of precious jewels. Musical jewels.  
  
He was listening to Joni Mitchell. Her fucked-uppedly (that was a word Dom had taught him; Dom had introduced him to Joni) complicated view of love and relationships suited his mood perfectly. Not that there was anything fucked up about his relationship with Dom, he didn't think. Except it might be Oh-vur.  
  
He was going home, Dom was going home. And their homes were in different places. They had agreed it would be best to spend some time apart. Who knew, maybe this *was* just some weird, intense, movie set fling. (he knew). Maybe they *did* need to prove to each other that it wasn't. (it wasn't.)  
  
It was too much to ask Dom to leave everything he had in England and come live with him in L.A. It was too much to ask. He had never asked. And Dom had suggested trying this apart thing, and he knew more about relationships than Elijah, right? All his CDs were boxed. He just needed to transfer the CDs from his big zippered CD case into their jewel cases, and pack those. He picked up the CD case and hugged it to his chest. He loved that case. It held a hundred CDs and it was full of the music he had discovered in New Zealand. Things Dom had introduced him to. And Billy. Even Sean. Sean had told him about Earl Klugh. Classical music from Sir Ian that he listened to when he went to sleep, hoping it would keep him from having those weird Frodo dreams. It was sort of like a musical scrapbook of his time in New Zealand. The blue fabric on the cover had gotten soft and soiled with handling. So many of the CDs in it were Dom's. He couldn't even remember which ones were his and which ones were Dom's.  
  
The little padlock on the zipper had been locked. Had he done that? He didn't usually lock it. Where was the key? Damn, where *was* the key? Dom must have it. At this point, it was basically Dom's case, too. Yet another reason not to be apart. They needed to share the case.  
  
"Dom? Do you have the key to the CD case?" Elijah asked. He didn't know why, but his hands were shaking as he held phone.  
  
"Um, not sure. If I do, I must have packed it. Sorry, babe," Dom answered. He was packing too. In 48 hours he would be celebrating Christmas with his family in Manchester. As opposed to his family at the other end of the phone.  
  
"Dom, I need the CDs in that case, but I don't want to have to cut it open." He felt like he was going to cry. He hoped he didn't sound like he was going to cry.  
  
"No, don't do that! That case is like an old friend!" Dom sounded anxious. Elijah often teased Dom about his tendency to fetishize things. He kept a washer on a chain, for Christ's sake.  
  
"I won't," Elijah said. "But I need that key. I don't know where I put it." Okay, now he was crying.  
  
"It'll turn up, baby, don't worry. Tell you what: if I do have it, as soon as I find it, I'll fly to L.A. and deliver it to you in person."  
  
"Really? Even if you find it the day you unpack?"  
  
"Betcher bottom dollar." (Elijah had taught Dom that phrase.)  
  
"Okay." Elijah felt better. Maybe he'd be seeing Dom sooner rather than later. He hung up the phone and returned to packing.  
  
In his Wellington apartment, surrounded by his own neatly taped and addressed boxes, Dom smiled and added the key to his necklace.  
  
********  
THE RING  
  
Dom considered it one of his life's great achievements that he had not murdered Franka Potente.  
  
She wasn't such a bad person, really. He knew that. She was just trying to make her way like everyone else. Maybe she was a little more scheming and ambitious than some, but the world was full of people like that, didn't matter what line of business you were in. Dom remembered this sous-chef at one restaurant where he worked who actually loosened the handle on another sous-chef's knife in the hope that he would cut himself and have to quit.  
  
And, he had to remind himself, she wasn't the one who had started it. He had started it. Sort of.  
  
Because it was Dom's fault. Elijah was an adult and he could go to gay bars in WeHo if he wanted, but he probably wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for Dom. Elijah would have waited until after Return of the King, two lifetimes from now. Should have waited. But why should they wait? It wasn't Dom's fault. But Dom deserved this. No, he didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved this.  
  
Elijah was so cool about it after the initial panic. Just another acting job, Dom. Everyone's freaking (well, Sean was freaking, New Line was freaking, Warner's was freaking. But Dom wasn't freaking.) We just gotta do it. We'll get through it.  
  
It was only a hockey game and a radio interview in Vancouver, and Thai food and a photo op in L.A. Maybe a couple more interviews. Dom couldn't even remember; it all took place over just a few weeks.  
  
Elijah kept saying it was just another acting job, but if it was, then it was an acting job that doused one of the few remaining flickers of innocence that Elijah had somehow managed to keep burning in his heart after 14 years as a Hollywood professional.  
  
Dom wasn't kidding when he called Elijah his soul-mate, and he considered the well-being of Elijah's soul to be his special care. The day he looked into Elijah's eyes and saw that dead little piece of soul dulling their gorgeous luster, he wanted to cry because it meant a piece of his own soul had died too.  
  
Elijah was flying to New Zealand the next day for Two Towers pick-ups, and the Franka era would be over, thank God. Elijah thought it might bring some kind of closure for them if they could all meet. She wasn't so bad, he said.  
  
Dom did not want to meet her. He hated her. He hated himself for hating her. He had always prided himself on being a person who did not hate. So he agreed to meet her. He had bungie-jumped to face his fear of heights. Why not have dinner with Franka Potente?  
  
They met at a restaurant that he didn't really like because, however good it was, Dom knew he would never want to go there again. But Elijah was right: Franka wasn't so bad. They spoke in German to each other. Elijah sat patiently while they talked; he had no idea what they were saying. He was just happy that they seemed to be getting along.  
  
"Your boyfriend shoved his fist up my crotch in front of the cameras," Franka smiled.  
  
"He can be pretty annoying." Dom nodded pleasantly, going along with her apparent desire to play it calm and happy.  
  
"He spilled beer on me at the hockey game," she laughed.  
  
"Yes, he can be clumsy, too," Dom answered cheerfully.  
  
"He put salt in my tea at the Thai restaurant." She made these accusations without rancor. It was like she was describing another bad day on the set. Dom was beginning to relax. He smiled and nodded some more.  
  
"He took me to the CD store and bought me ten copies of the same Britney Spears CD."  
  
Dom laughed out loud at that. Elijah laughed too, even though he didn't understand what had been said. He was just so relieved things seemed to be going well. He needed a cigarette. He excused himself from the table.  
  
"You probably hate me," Franka said matter-of-factly in English when Elijah had left the room.  
  
"No. No I don't," and Dom was surprised to find he meant it.  
  
"I have something for you." Franka reached into her bag and pulled out a ring. It was not fancy, just silver with a simple pattern engraved on it. "The PR people gave this to me to wear. It was supposed to be Part 2 of the campaign. A commitment ring or something to start rumors about our deepening love and possible engagement. Elijah never knew about it."  
  
Dom looked at her blankly.  
  
"For Part 1, I got a good agent here in L.A. Part 2 was going to be a green card." A spark of anger lit her eyes for a millisecond. "Fuck the green card. It's not worth it. Here, take it." She pressed the ring into Dom's hand. "You do Part 2. Everyone will be happier."  
  
Dom slipped the ring in his shirt pocket before Elijah returned to the table. He could feel its weight against his chest all through dinner.  
  
When they got home, he and Elijah had a good-bye fuck that was reported the next day in the newspapers as a small earthquake in the L.A. area, registering 3.2 on the Richter scale.  
  
Dom arrived in New Zealand two weeks after Elijah. He had added the ring to the chain. When Elijah asked about it, Dom said one of the WETA people had given it to him.  
  
********  
THE RED THING  
  
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,  
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.  
All your life,  
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.  
  
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,  
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.  
All your life,  
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.  
  
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly,  
Into the light of the dark black night.  
  
It wasn't exactly fair to say that Blackbird was "their" song, because there were so many songs that were their songs. They had a song for slow dancing and a song for geeky dancing, a song for eating and a song for drinking, a song for fucking and a song for making love.  
  
But Blackbird was their first song, the song Elijah was listening to a lifetime ago when Dom first realized that half his soul had abandoned his body and had gone to live in a smoky trailer on a movie lot in New Zealand.  
  
In the beginning, it was all about the first verse. They were both young, so maybe it wasn't saying much for Dom to claim to have waited his whole life for Elijah, but that was what it felt like anyway. He wished he had paid closer attention in school (or any attention, actually), because he found he didn't have the skills to count high enough when he sat down to count his blessings, or the vocabulary to describe the feeling of joy beyond joy in his heart.  
  
When he complained about it, Elijah had said, "That's what music is for."  
  
After New Zealand, it was all about the second verse. They were still waiting for their moment to be free. But it was coming. Not as soon as he would like, but it was coming all the same. So he kept playing the song. In some part of his unconscious mind, he hoped that the very act of playing the song would free them somehow.  
  
For his birthday in Paris during the The Two Towers premiere tour, Elijah gave Dom an old Japanese 45 of Blackbird as a present. It had been pressed in red and orange marbled vinyl. It was a rarity and Dom loved it. But one look at it and they both realized it wouldn't play. It was too warped.  
  
Dom jokingly strung it on his necklace and said if he couldn't play it, at least he could wear it. And for a minute he experienced the joy one gets from looking completely silly and making his lover laugh.  
  
And that was when Elijah got the idea.  
  
"But that would be desecration!" For once, it was Dom who was completely shocked.  
  
"It's not desecration if you can't even play it in the first place," Elijah argued. "You'll get more use out of it this way."  
  
It was hard to argue with his logic. Besides, they were guys, and they couldn't help being attracted to the idea of melting and mutilating things. So that's what they did, they softened up the disc with Elijah's lighter and used some scissors to cut a piece off. Then, while the piece was still soft, they poked a hole in it with a needle from the hotel sewing kit and strung it on the necklace. Even Dom had to admit that it looked very cool.  
  
They cut another piece of it off for Elijah. He put it in the cardboard box with all the chains. Dom was the sentimental one, but Elijah still had that box for some reason.  
  
"What will you tell people if they ask you what it is?" Elijah asked. Coming up with misleading stories for the items on Dom's necklace had become something of a hobby for them.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. No, wait, I know! Let's tell them it's a Maori fertility symbol! No one's going to want to follow up on that!"  
  
********  
THE LAST LINK  
  
The L.A. premiere was one of the best. They were relaxed and happy, fooling around with each other and enjoying the fans. Dom and his lollipop. There would be hell to pay for that stunt, though God only knew why, really. Then there was the Air Frodo thing the next day: that really was a thrill for Elijah, to see his face on the side of a 747, for Christ's sake. It was just unreal. And holding hands and getting soaked in the rain.  
  
They were both so tired by the time the plane took off for New Zealand. Thank God for overnighters in First Class, Elijah thought. He wondered if he could pay the pilots to circumnavigate the globe a couple times, so he could get some extra sleep.  
  
"Hey, Lij." Dom interrupted his drifting thoughts.  
  
"Hmph," Elijah mumbled drowsily.  
  
"Look out the window. See how bright the moon is."  
  
Elijah opened one eye. It really was beautiful. It was like they were soaring through outer space.  
  
"You know what, love?" Dom picked up Elijah's fine white hand from the armrest and pressed his lips to it. "We're flying into the light of the dark black night."


End file.
